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Lucky Star's Impact on Shrine's Town: 1 Billion+ Yen
posted on by Egan Loo
The town of Washimiya estimates that the increased from 90,000 in 2007 to 450,000 this year. At over 500 hits a day, the town's commerce and industry associations says it has the most popular website of any such association in the country.
Lucky Star fans began lived just one city to the east of Washimiya when he began drawing the original Lucky Star manga. (The town is named Washimiya, but the shrine is called Washinomiya.)
Three months after the anime aired, Yoshimizu and the anime voice cast led by came to Washimiya in December of 2007 for an "official shrine visit." 100 people had arrived by 5:00 a.m. that morning, and 3,500 eventually came. 2,100 mobile phone straps offered by the local Ootorichaya Washinomiya restaurant sold out within half an hour. The following month, 300,000 visitors came during the first three days of 2008, and 420,000 came during the same period in 2009.
Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web
Images © Kagami Yoshimizu/Lucky Paradise
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